1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for preventing the illegitimate exit of the printed document of an electronic document and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus that are capable of preventing the illegitimate exit of a printed document in such a way as to generate a secure printed document by additionally applying a security material to printing paper on which the content and identifier of an electronic document have been printed, detect the security material, and recognize the content of the security identifier.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of technologies by companies, the illegitimate exit of advanced industrial technologies continues to increase. The illegitimate exit of technology is chiefly performed by an insider who cleverly makes use of the drawbacks of an existing security system. Accordingly, there is a need for a technology for preventing the illegitimate exit of an output confidential document or drawing.
A related technology for preventing the illegitimate exit of a printed document proposes printing paper for security. For example, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2008-0107977 entitled “Paper for Security and Method of Manufacturing the Same” discloses a technology in which a detection tag is inserted into printing paper so that a printed document output onto the printing paper is detected when the printed document passes through a detection gate. However, it is not possible to find a person who has actually output the printed document, and it is difficult to distinguish between a case where the printed document can be exited and a case where the printed document should not be exited.
As another related technology, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2011-0126953 entitled “Apparatus and Method for Securely Distributing Internal Documents” provides a method of tracking the illegitimate use of an internal document by inserting a watermark into the original internal document. In this technology, however, the illegitimate exit of an internal document into which the watermark has been inserted cannot be detected.
As described above, the related technologies for preventing the illegitimate exit of a printed document have a limitation in terms of the performance of approval for printed document exit, the prevention of the illegitimate exit of the printed document, and the information recording of the printed document depending on whether the exit of the printed document has been permitted.